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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
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Category Archives: current events
Jealousy vs joy
Jealousy is the thief of joy. It keeps the elder brother from the family reunion. It prevents the citizen from celebrating the rescue of the refugee, the wealthy from celebrating Jesus’ announcement of good news for the poor and the meek. It resents the love of God for its rival, and leads to the casting of golden calves to spite them all. It clouds the vision of the scribes so that they do not even recognize the Word of God when he is standing right in front of them, telling stories from heaven. Continue reading
Posted in current events, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged conversion of Saul, jealousy, Jesus, joy, lost sheep, Luke 15:1-10, parable, Year C Proper 19
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Truisms
Hatred shared is never hatred halved. The blood of an enemy will not cure anaemia of conscience. Suffer the little children never meant to sacrifice them. The mortality of another will never lessen our own. The immortality of another will … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry
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Labour
In which we breathe in solidarity with the breathless. In which we groan in harmonic relationship with the suffering. In which we dream in creative union with the author of life’s manifesto: decrying death, deploring despotism, denouncing the cynicism of … Continue reading
Teach us to pray
The story that Jesus tells suggests that we are in this together; that while one person is begging for bread, the one who is secure, safe and comfortable and tucked up in bed with their well-fed children, is the one who is called upon to answer, “and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged beloved community, Gaza, God, Hosea 1:2-10, Jesus, kingdom of God, Lord's Prayer, Luke 11:1-13, prayer, Year C Proper 12
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Bread
Bread
Who, in the night,
would give their neighbour stones
and say, “Here, make bread.” Continue reading
Mother’s Day
Including words from the original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe The very Earth is heaving beneath the weight of war. Fire consumes and leaves no food for the rest of God’s creatures; lead pollutes the soil, the seas, the … Continue reading
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer
Tagged Julia Ward Howe, Mother's Day, peace, war
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The death of Simeon
Simeon, a man full of the Spirit of God, had been told by that same Spirit that he would live to see the face of God. What more could a man want? Yet who could see God and live? Continue reading
Anna in the sanctuary
Widowed, but not alone, shrouded in the living stone of temple prayers woven as a garment of grace haunting the holy place, sanctified and sanctifying the very air with praise. She would not follow them to Egypt, return with them … Continue reading
A prayer out of time
O God, take up this day, cradle it like the newborn thing that it is, turn it this way and see the pink sunrise, the bruise of clouds, the barely-lit night which to you is as bright as the day, … Continue reading
Mercy
filled with the power of the Spirit, the prophet found the place where it was written: good news to the poor, release to the captives,and recovery of sight to the blind, The Spirit of the Lord haslet the oppressed go free – as … Continue reading
over the water 